My birthday is this weekend, and while this is usually a time to receive gifts and hold celebrations, I thought it would be appropriate to give something to the people who made my birthday a possibility: my parents. Parents are the reason we are all here, and I want to take some time to thank mine for the past (almost) 21 years of my life.

Dear Mom and Dad,

You both know that my birthday has always been an exciting time for me because it is a celebration of another year of life, another year of wisdom, and another year of happiness. However, for you both, my birthday is possibly more important than it is to me. It represents the day you became parents, the day you started another new chapter in your lives, the day you started my first chapter, and the day you starting giving me everything you had. I have been given plenty of birthday gifts over the years, but rarely has anyone, including me, taken this day to appreciate you—until now.

Without you, I wouldn’t be turning 21 this week. I wouldn’t be celebrating birthdays, graduations, or holidays. I wouldn’t have my friends or my experiences. I wouldn’t have a loving immediate and extended family. I wouldn’t have siblings who both annoy and impress me every day. Without you both, I wouldn’t have anything—literally and figuratively speaking. You both have always been there for me as a team, and I am thankful for that. In an age in which people are constantly ending their relationships, you were always together and always 100% my parents as a collective entity, and I realize how lucky I am for that, so thank you.

Thank you for teaching me how to walk, read, write, color, dress myself, and spell. Thank for you teaching me how to interact with others, ride a bike, do my homework, and be thankful for gifts and compliments. Thank you for teaching me how to deal with mean girls, handle heartbreak, and push through the tough times. Thank you for teaching me how to love myself and know my worth. Thank you for teaching me how to teach others how to be who they truly are.

Thank you for letting me fail in order to know how to succeed. Thank you for letting me find out people’s true colors for myself in order to recognize them in others in the future. Thank you for letting me make my own decisions in order to assess how I could have chosen differently or similarly in the future. Thank you for giving me countless opportunities for growth without sheltering me from the negative feelings of these experiences; I am all the better for it. Thank you for not just giving me life but also for giving me my life.

Thank you for giving me love, respect, and support every day. Thank you for being honest with me even when I didn’t want to hear it. Thank you for instilling in me a sense of responsibility and a sense of purpose; they have served me very well. Thank you for showing me that being kind, even when people don’t deserve my kindness, is the best thing I can do. Thank you for giving me Sean and Katie; they get on my nerves, and half of the time I wish they could be 4 years old again, but they also keep me motivated, grounded, and impressed every day. Thank you for showing what a family looks like and how a family acts in public and in private. We have been given the tools to keep our own families in the future as close and as strong as ours is today.

You have done many, many more things I cannot even begin to think of or name at the moment, so in their place, I have to say this: Mom and Dad, thank you for everything you have given me. Thank you for being my parents and giving me the life I was meant to live. Thank you for all of your love and support. I love you.

Love,

Your grateful daughter

Emilie